Jewish Resistance to Nazis in Yugoslavia Reported by Guerilla Army Leader

January 15, 1942

LONDON (Jan. 14)

The part which Jews are taking in the fight to free Yugoslavia of the Nazis, as well as details of the barbarism to which Yugoslav Jews are being subjected were related here today by a envoy of Gen. Draja Mihailovitch’s guerilla army, who just arrived in London on a special mission.

In an interview with a correspondent of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency the Yugoslav officer revealed that a number of Gen. Mihailovitch’s closest collaborators are Jews. His aide de camp is a Jewish doctor from Belgrade, while a young Jewish officer, a former student in Belgrade, directs the operations of 50,000 guerillas who are fighting in the Nazi-occupied, districts. In addition to these, the young officer’s command includes units of the famous Chetaiks, Serbian mountain fighters, which have been incorporated into the army. Among the rank and file fighters in the guerilla army are young and old Jews who fled to the mountains from Belgrade, Zagreb, Sarajevo and other cities.

The Yugoslav envoy also revealed details of the “terrible fate of the Jews” under the Nazis. A few days after the Nazi occupation of the country hundreds of Belgrade Jews were rounded up in a house in the suburbs. There, they were lined up and every fifth Jew was shot. In one morning, 119 Jews and six Serbs were murdered in this manner. Details of the executions were given him by a young Jew who succeeded in escaping, using the ruse that he knew where he could obtain for the Nazis a supply of sorely needed medicines, Gen. Mihailovitch’s representative said.

The manner in which Jews, who have not succeeded in escaping from the Nazi-held cities, also carry on anti-Nazi activity was also touched upon in the course of the interview. Jews who were ordered to surrender their radios to the Nazis, the Yugoslav spokesman stated, instead turned them over to Serbian friends who proceeded to use them to pick up instructions from the Yugoslav government in London, which were broadcast by the BBC.